U.S. Pays Kin of Foreigners in Shoot-Down

WASHINGTON — The U.S. government is making $100,000 payments to each of the families of the 11 foreign nationals who were killed in the mistaken shoot-down of two Army helicopters in northern Iraq.

A Pentagon statement said Defense Secretary William J. Perry decided to make the payments to the families of the British, Turkish, French and Kurdish crew members "in recognition of the unique circumstances related to the aircraft accident."

The Pentagon earlier released a report on the April 14 incident that found the pilots of two U.S. F-15s had misidentified the helicopters as Iraqi and that crews on an AWACS observation plane had failed to tell the pilots the choppers were friendly.